This AP article is one of many I’ve seen lately that talk about how fed up establishment Republlicans are with Cruz and his Tea Party fellow crazies. But look at the establishment Republicans they’re quoting by name!

“It’s time for someone to act like a grown-up in this process,” former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu argues. …

Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is just as pointed, saying this about the tea party-fueled refusal to support spending measures that include money for Obama’s health care law: “It never had a chance.”
[…]
“At the end of the day, you’re fighting legislation that’s already passed,” said former South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Katon Dawson, describing the fight to defund the health care law as a lost cause.
[…]
“We’re not saying Obama is right. We’re saying what Republicans are doing is wrong,” said Matt Cox, a former executive director of Ohio’s Cuyahoga County GOP.
[…]Former Illinois state Sen. Laura Douglas wants to believe that the holdouts can win. But she has her doubts.

“My heart says, `Keep fighting, don’t give up,'” said Douglas, a resident of Quincy in western Illinois. “But my head says, `If we keep this kind of thing up, we’re going to get creamed next year.'”

The only currently serving Republicans who are willing to go on record are from the Tea Party faction, and obviously they have nothing but kind words for their interplanetary denizens.

The Republican establishment may hate Ted Cruz, but they don’t dare cross him, either. As of October 2 — the second day of the shutdown — 17 House Republicans had gone on record saying they would vote for a clean CR if John Boehner brought it to the floor for a vote. But he wouldn’t then. and he won’t now. House Democrats said they would try to force a vote via a rarely used procedure called a discharge petition, but two House Republicans who had publicly declared they would vote for a clean CR if it came to the House floor — and who have also publicly said such a vote would be successful — refused to support the idea.

Tony Perkins is right. Ted Cruz IS the de facto leader of the Republican Party.